Performers from Broadway will take part in a special benefit Monday, Jan. 26 to help raise funds to send the Staples Orphenians to San Francisco in March for the National Youth Choral Festival.

The Orphenians are also raising funds for their San Francisco trip online here. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

Adam Kaplan, a 2008 Staples graduate and a Broadway performer, has agreed to gather some of his friends from Broadway shows to participate in the 7:30 p.m. event at Staples, an announcement said. They include performers from shows such as “Wicked,” “Newsies,” and “Mary Poppins.”

The Grammy award-winning choir Chanticleer chose the Orphenians to be part of the festival based on a performance last spring, according to organizers. The Orphenians are the only East Coast group to be invited.

The Oprhenians have been learning new music and preparing for the trip that will involve rehearsals, workshops, master classes, and performances with Chanticleer. Classes in vocal technique and sight singing will be offered to all students, the announcement said.

The Westport Art Center was filled with sounds of the “The Brazilian Samba and Bossa Nova” today. Jazz flutist Ali Ryerson teamed up with longtime duo partner guitarist Joe Carter, along with bassist David Finck and percussionist Ze Mauricio, to perform a program of Brazilian favorites from master composers Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfa, Carlos Lyra. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Phyllis Groner for WestportNow.com

WestportREADS 2015 and James Joyce’s “Dubliners” was celebrated at the Westport Library today with a performance by Themselves, a quartet and step dancer group. They played Irish music on harp, violin, and guitar and offered poems, songs and stories of Joyce. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Phyllis Groner for WestportNow.com

Award-winning author, broadcaster and James Joyce expert Frank Delaney spoke today to a crowd at the Westport Library as part of the WestportREADS focus on Joyce’s collection of short stories, “Dubliners.” Delaney, born and raised in Ireland, said “Dubliners” was hailed as a masterpiece upon its publication in the early 20th century, giving authors the license to “write about their own lives and call it literature.” He said without Joyce “there would have been no Hemingway, Virginia Woolf or Faulkner.” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

The Music Theatre of Connecticut (MTC) School of Performing Arts rehearses for “Guys and Dolls JR” at the Westport Country Playhouse Saturday and Sunday at 3 p.m.  According to Kevin Connors, MTC co-founder, the cast of 28 is comprised of performing arts students from 8 to 15 years old who live in Fairfield County. “Guys And Dolls JR.,” an oddball romantic comedy, is an adaptation of its namesake show which ran for 1,200 performances when it opened on Broadway in 1950.  Directed by MTC co-founder Jim Schilling, tickets and information for the production are available at (203)454-3883 or visit www.musictheatreofct.com. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Work was under way today in the Westport Library’s Great Hall preparing for an exhibit, “Drawn to the Edge,” by Westport artist Norma Minkowitz. Ellen Naftalin (l) and Joan Miller were among those unpacking and mounting works for the show, which opens Friday, Jan. 16 and runs through March 25. Minkowitz has worked with fiber, wire, resin and other materials to transform the craft of crochet into a timeless art form. Her work is held in 27 museum collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Larry Untermeyer for WestportNow.com

By Susan Granger

In “The Imitation Game,” Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, the obsessive genius who cracked the German Enigma code during World War II. 

As the Luftwaffe bombed London and German U-boats were sinking ships, brilliant but troubled Alan Turing was recruited to join five other mathematicians at Bletchley Park to try to crack the Nazis’ complex military code which defied decryption by changing at midnight every night. 

Awkwardly antisocial, Turing’s blunt, condescending rudeness immediately alienates Commander Denniston (Charles Dance) and his colleagues (Matthew Goode, Allen Leech and Matthew Beard).

Nevertheless, Turing builds a digital ‘thinking’ device, an artificial intelligence that’s obviously an early computer - with the help of Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), the only woman judged bright enough to associate with the code breakers.

There was a full house at the Westport Library today for the opening event of the library’s month-long WestportREADS program this year featuring James Joyce’s “Dubliners.” Veteran Staples High School English teacher Gerry Kuroghlian, known to legions of students as “Dr. K,” provided history, background and insight into the characters, the stories and the city of Dublin. “There is lots of humor in the book even though some of the themes are dark,” he said. “My wife is Irish, and I have found that you can’t be Irish without having a sense of humor.” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Phyllis Groner for WestportNow.com